"During the pandemic, Xiaoxian Dun's overall sales still grew by 150% compared to the same period in 2019," shared Lin Xiaoxian, founder of Xiaoxian Dun, in a recent livestream. In fact, bird's nest and other nourishing products are among the sub-sectors severely impacted by the pandemic. According to research by Jieshu Consulting on 1,000 e-commerce categories under the pandemic's influence, the bird's nest category had a daily sales scale of 25 million yuan before the holiday, but after the holiday, daily sales once dropped to around 1 million yuan, a decline of up to 96%. As a mid-to-high-end domestic brand that has risen in recent years, Xiaoxian Dun Fresh Stewed Bird's Nest not only remained unaffected by the industry's "96% decline" but instead achieved counter-trend growth. Lin Xiaoxian summarized two main reasons: first, product strength; second, brand strength. -01- Relying on Product Strength The Xiaoxian Dun brand carries a distinct founder imprint. Founder Lin Xiaoxian was born into a family of traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, graduated from the First Military Medical University, and holds the title of National First-Class Health Manager, all of which bring a strong sense of trust to the brand. In the past, Xiaoxian Dun pioneered the "fresh stewed bird's nest" sub-category and became the leading brand in this category. In product development, it established five major standards for fresh stewed bird's nest, including carefully selected raw materials, self-built factories, and after 280 tests, determined a stewing time of 38 minutes at 95 degrees Celsius to ensure nutrients are not lost. It was also the first in the industry to adopt a C2M model of same-day fresh stewing and cold-chain delivery. With a shelf life of only 15 days, it truly achieves zero additives. With such confidence, Xiaoxian Dun became a dark horse in the nourishing products industry and the first nourishing brand to enter Tmall's billion-yuan club. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lin Xiaoxian discovered that over 400 scientific articles mentioned that bird's nest has excellent effects against influenza viruses, parainfluenza viruses, and respiratory syncytial viruses, and can enhance the body's immunity. Therefore, the potential demand for bird's nest remained strong during the pandemic. During the pandemic, workers at Xiaoxian Dun Fresh Stewed Bird's Nest were engaged in feather-picking work. To meet the urgent needs of users, Lin Xiaoxian immediately organized Xiaoxian Dun's executives to assess the situation and personally went to the production front line, fully participating in the development of a safe resumption plan. During the pandemic, Xiaoxian Dun introduced a "Ten-Step Worker Cleaning and Disinfection Protection Method" for frontline production workers, which every worker must strictly follow. It is precisely Xiaoxian Dun's strict standards for every production link that enabled it to resume work smoothly during the extraordinary period. -02- Relying on Brand Strength During the livestream, Lin Xiaoxian also shared the path of Xiaoxian Dun's brand rise, which she believes lies in accurately and efficiently finding potential users. Xiaoxian Dun Fresh Stewed Bird's Nest is positioned as a nourishing product for mid-to-high-end consumers, who live in mid-to-high-end residential areas. During media promotion research, Lin Xiaoxian noticed a slogan from Focus Media: "Of China's 400 million urban mainstream population, 300 million watch Focus." Lin Xiaoxian thought, isn't this exactly what we want? Subsequently, Xiaoxian Dun cooperated with Focus Media in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou. Last year's "38 Queen's Day," the "Xiaoxian Dun × Focus" campaign was a textbook marketing activity that exploded both offline and online. On "38 Queen's Day," a "red gift box" appeared in Focus elevators across Beijing, containing genuine bottled Xiaoxian Dun bird's nest and a weekly bird's nest card—real products, see and get. Instantly, a "sweeping the building for treasure" craze erupted in the capital, and social media was flooded with Xiaoxian Dun's activities and lucky users who received gift boxes. While the activity trended on hot searches, countless users were won over by Xiaoxian Dun's sincere marketing creativity. On that day, Xiaoxian Dun's bird's nest sales increased by 465% year-on-year. By the end of 2019, combined with Focus, Xiaoxian Dun's sales had tripled. During Tmall's "Double 11 Shopping Festival," Xiaoxian Dun achieved 130 million yuan in sales across all channels, becoming the top-selling bird's nest product on Tmall. It was also the top-selling fresh stewed bird's nest brand on JD.com, Little Red Book, and across all channels. Lin Xiaoxian believes: Focus is the most effective and highest-reach media for the middle class and above, with the characteristics of high momentum and high-frequency contact with mainstream audiences. It helps Xiaoxian Dun establish awareness of the new category of "fresh stewed bird's nest" and fully conveys the trust of Xiaoxian Dun as the 'expert brand in fresh stewed bird's nest.' -03- Insights from Xiaoxian Dun In the past, Xiaoxian Dun relied on excellent quality and frequent online collaborations with top influencers like Viya and Zhang Dayi, as well as over 20 celebrities including Chen Shu, Cecilia Cheung, Zhang Yuqi, and Jing Tian. This harvested a large amount of traffic, accumulated a large fan base, and achieved the leap from 0 to 10, with revenue exceeding 200 million yuan by the end of 2018. But as online traffic dividends ended and in-platform traffic costs continued to rise, founder Lin Xiaoxian, by leveraging her grasp of the media landscape and brand competition strategy, used Focus Media to ignite the mainstream audience, completing the leap from an internet-famous brand to a star brand. For Xiaoxian Dun's transformation, if the first stage's product strength was fundamental, then the second stage's full brand ignition was key. Nowadays, many internet-famous brands see revenue stagnate at the hundreds of millions stage, with online spending growth slowing but costs rising. In the long run, if they don't advance, they will inevitably regress. How to break through? Xiaoxian Dun's model is worth learning from. To put it simply: accumulate fans online, build word-of-mouth, cultivate brand loyalty, achieve high-frequency repurchase, complete the brand's internet-famous phase for survival, create excellent online reviews, then use offline Focus to ignite in consumers' essential living spaces, enhance brand awareness, attract the attention of urban mainstream consumers, occupy user mindshare, expand the internet-famous effect to the public market, and achieve another leap in brand development. In recent years, it's not just Xiaoxian Dun that has figured out an effective brand growth curve. Brands like Ele.me, Guazi Used Cars, Luckin Coffee, and Miaokelando have all made their mark through this combined approach. The seemingly simple model is actually not simple. The core of this combination lies in understanding the essence of media: mainstream people don't watch much TV, and internet use is fragmented, making it hard to ignite centrally. On mobile, users have control and ads are easily ignored, while the once-effective video site pre-roll ads are now skipped by users who pay for memberships. So for content marketing on mobile internet, it's more effective to create topic events or have influencers/celebrities do content-based reviews or recommendations. For brand ignition to form influence, offline media brands prefer to focus on Focus Media. The obvious power is that compared to the boredom of waiting for an elevator, users are more willing to actively watch ads because in the elevator—an essential scene—ads not only aren't annoying but help pass the time and handle awkwardness. This scarce value will become even more prominent as competition intensifies, and the value of this online-offline combination model will become increasingly evident. The impact of the pandemic not only failed to kill Xiaoxian Dun's market share but actually boosted sales. It's clear that brand strength is the true immunity of a company. It can be boldly predicted that Xiaoxian Dun will fully occupy the cognitive advantage in the fresh stewed category. Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once adopted.